1. Technical Field
The embodiments herein generally relate to an interface for a storage media, and, more particularly, to a storage medium with an in-built menu based interactivity and navigation that includes retrieval of relevant multimedia content based on keywords pre-linked with multimedia content.
2. Description of the Related Art
DVDs have traditionally been built upon the idea of delivering the movie hall film to the viewer's home TV set. The entire purpose and logic behind the structure of a DVD was motivated by and guided by this concern primarily. In that sense, the traditional DVD with its simple menu with an option to choose a language, a subtitle language, and sound scheme (e.g., stereo or 5.1 surround sound) was sufficient and provided excellent support for the film industry
In the meantime, the world has changed rapidly with the internet, Rich internet applications, cheap and powerful computers and myriad multimedia formats and possibilities. The ubiquitous DVD has however been restricted to its original standard specification. So while DVDs today can, and do provide different types of content, its interactive possibilities have not yet been utilized in the manner in which a multimedia application or the internet has been.
DVD-Video contents are organized as contiguous addressable chunks of data, known as program streams. In order to play back the contents recorded on a DVD disc, the DVD player firmware includes two major components, namely a presentation engine and a navigation engine. The presentation engine uses information in the presentation data stream from the disc to know how to display its contents. For navigation, the DVD player uses the information in the navigation data stream from the disc to provide interactivity for the user interface, display menus, etc. via a standard set of player instructions.
The structure of any typical DVD structure comprises of: a) Cell b) Program c) Chapter d) Program chain (PGC) e) VOB f) Video title set. FIG. 1 illustrates a user interface view 100 of the program chain within a typical DVD. The program chain 102 includes a plurality of programs such as a program 104, a program 106 and a program 108. The programs include a plurality of cells.
The program 104 includes a cell 1 110, a cell 2 112 and a cell 3 114. The program 106 includes a cell 1 116, a cell 2 118 and a cell 3 120. The program 108 includes a cell 1 122, a cell 2 124 and a cell 3 126. The program chain usually consists of information and commands on how to play back a list of cells.
Storage media like DVDs inherently lack interactive functionality which is provided to them by playing them in computers. The storage media like DVD when played on DVD players provides limited interactivity with the multimedia content fed in them. Certain DVDs enable user to restrict selected multimedia contents from access by other users, some DVDs allow user to select pre-defined multimedia content to be played. No DVD currently provides a full fledged navigation menu based interactive functionality when played on a DVD player. The navigation data stream of the DVD provides interactivity for the user interface, display menus, and to support random access and conditional branching, etc, via a standard set of player instructions known as DVD virtual commands. However, these DVD virtual commands are limited to certain basic functionalities. FIG. 2 illustrates a table view of limited virtual commands in a typical DVD. FIG. 3 illustrates a table view of virtual commands that are available in a Video Title Set Menu (VTSM) domain.
Further, when a DVD stores a large amount of multimedia content, retrieval of relevant content is a huge challenge, since the DVD does not support search functionalities or advanced navigation functionalities. For example, in the case of a DVD that stores hundreds or thousands of videos, one has to manually select and play each video to find the video that is of relevance if one is unaware of its contents. Therefore there remains a need for developing interface for a storage media enhancing interactivity of a user with information retrieval of the multimedia content especially when the storage media like DVD is played on a DVD player.